


Orange Blossom

by Thealmostrhetoricalquestion



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Domestic Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood, Established Relationship, Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Magical Realism, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2020-03-09 10:48:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18915421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thealmostrhetoricalquestion/pseuds/Thealmostrhetoricalquestion
Summary: It's customary to give your heart to the one you love, to someone you trust enough to keep it safe.Alec looks at the chaotic breakfast performance taking place on the countertops: the melons dicing and mashing themselves amidst clouds of sweetness; the ramekins clinking as they fill with melted butter and puffs of sugar; sparkling cider uncorking in the bucket of steaming ice, all while Magnus conducts his culinary orchestra, and he knows that if safety is a place that feels like home, then Magnus and his magic is the safest place in the world.





	Orange Blossom

**Author's Note:**

> Hmm, romance? Romance. At 3:33 in the morning, make a wish! The wish is for sleep. 
> 
> I’m not making any sense, but please enjoy this bundle of aesthetics and vague metaphors and sweet snappiness bundled into one story. Ta!! <3

I.

Alec keeps his heart in a pocket-watch in the drawer of his bedside table. When he starts spending more time with Magnus, waking up in the carefree mornings he can only find under the beams of one particular Brooklyn loft, the pocket-watch gravitates to his jacket pocket. It beats above his chest, shaky with relief. Only he can feel it. 

Magnus gets him a jewellery box when he asks him to move in. It's more funny than anything, as it's meant to be; Magnus is the one that dresses in fine things, in leather beaded bracelets and charming necklaces and rings that sit heavy on each finger, coils of weighted memory. Alec only has this pocket-watch, and Magnus doesn't know about it. He doesn’t need a jewellery box. 

Later, he has a ring, but that never leaves his finger. 

The pocket-watch is cracked and broken, and the hands don’t move anymore, but the heart inside is strong. It beats steadily. He found the pocket-watch on the wet sidewalk the night of his first date with Magnus. It was shining on the ground as he _skipped_ to meet him, all eleven hundred feet of Shadowhunter dancing along like the paving stones were hot coals because he felt like he'd been freed, cheesy as that was, and now he won't let it go for anything.

He used to keep his heart in an old lip-balm tin, a tiny thing with a rubbed-raw lid that once belonged to his mother, pilfered from her desk. Alec remembers washing it clean in the sink once his heart got too big for his chest, the way hearts often do, and sliding the lid into place with a rusted click.

It was fine enough; sensible, sturdy, and safe. Nobody was going to suspect something as important as a heart to be hiding in an old tin. But hearts grow tired of dark drawers eventually. 

Alec prefers the pocket-watch.

When Magnus smiles at him, glossy and emphatic in excitement, and tells him to pack a bag for an impromptu holiday, the pocket-watch comes out of the spare jacket pocket. It gets wrapped in tissue paper, then a shirt that he doesn't wear, and slipped in a compartment of the complex suitcase Magnus insisted he needed. The trip turns out to be far from impromptu; Alec finds his patrols covered, his paperwork filed ahead of time, and a schedule drawn up for their trip in sun-soaked Italy when he taps Izzy on the shoulder the following morning, prepared to negotiate. It makes him sigh and shake his head, but it also makes him laugh, and the pocket-watch feels warm before they even reach Verona. 

The tissue paper crinkles when he unwraps the wrong shirt in their hotel room, and Magnus glances up, curious, but says nothing when Alec puts it back in his suitcase. 

II.

Hearts are fickle things, he’s found, but Alec’s is particularly so. Sometimes it looks like the teardrop petal of a flower, silk-smooth and soft as velvet to touch. Sometimes it shifts into a cold, hard lump of crystal—agate or pyrite, or turquoise when he feels particularly unsteady. He likes when it looks like thread. Spools of thread crammed into a pocket-watch, a thin and fragile line. 

In Verona, Alec’s heart turns the colour of fresh orange juice, pulp and all, and feels like a late, lazy morning. 

With the click of a button, his toothbrush whirs to life. He used a plain plastic toothbrush when his heart was encased in tin, but Magnus spouted something about the efficient break up of plaque and dazzling smiles, and rushed to buy him an electric one, and it was all very domestic, enough that Alec didn't protest. He just smiled, plaque-free, and now he has to remember to charge his toothbrush. 

“What do you like in your scrambled eggs, love?” Magnus’s voice carries through the doors on a wave of magic, idle, almost uninterested, and it would be believable if he hadn't told Alec more than once that these simple boring things _deeply_ interest him when they refer to Alec, to the point of being embarrassing. Alec is trying to believe it. He thinks he's nearly there. 

Alec speaks through mint and fluoride, muffled. “Egg.”

A sigh, a mutter, the blatter of a whisk in a bowl. The sounds make Alec smile, familiar as they are, even in a new place. Foam gathers at the corners of his mouth, a rabid smile of love and contentment. He spits and rinses, stepping out into the vast hall of their hotel floor, following the noise of gentle exasperation. 

In the doorway, he pauses and stares. 

Yes, hearts are fickle things, but who they belong to never changes, at least in Alec’s case. He’s never given it to anyone, never left the tin in plain view or placed the watch in someone else’s pocket. But he could always trust Izzy and Max and Jace with it. It sang when they sat on his bed, voices pitched high and delighted, and the notes dropped low and mournful when they left. 

He never thought of giving it to anyone else before Magnus arrived on the scene, sirens screaming blue and gold. It's customary, to give your heart to the one you love, to someone you trust enough to keep it safe. Alec looks at the chaotic breakfast performance taking place on the countertops: the melons dicing and mashing themselves amidst clouds of sweetness; the ramekins clinking as they fill with melted butter and puffs of sugar; sparkling cider uncorking in the bucket of steaming ice while Magnus conducts his culinary orchestra, and he knows that if safety is a place that feels like home, then Magnus and his magic is the safest place in the world. 

Before Magnus, there was never anyone to keep hold of his heart, to look after it. He thought of Lydia, for a very brief time, but it would have been a lie, a banner painted in the wrong colours, an expectation rather than something gifted truly, freely. When he considered it, his heart recoiled. That had been that. He could convince the people around him, the ones that wanted to believe him, but his heart remained stubbornly unmoved.

Magnus is the only one he wants to give his heart too. That is the simple truth, a fact that remains unchallenged. 

“I added spinach, chives, peppers and that disgustingly soft cheese that you like.” Magnus greets him with a kiss and a plate loaded high. His own sits beside the sizzling pan, picked at here and there. “If you don't like it, it's because you have bad taste.” 

“Terrible,” Alec agrees, with a pointed look up and down Magnus’s body. 

He's wearing a shirt, but he may as well not be; it hangs open, a doorway that he wants to walk through more than anything, and the fabric is semi-sheer, threaded with blue, obscuring next to nothing. His chest is a diversion from the heart he keeps secret. It seems to say _here you are, take it all, I am open to everything,_ and his smirk is just as inviting. But Magnus himself has said over and over that he had begun to calcify, turn to stone and gold like Midas himself had stroked the planes of his chest, unable to resist. Before Alec, Magnus had taken all the soft things and tucked them away where nothing can pierce them. 

They haven't shown their hearts to each other. Alec wonders if Magnus keeps his in a box, like he does his past loves, or if it is out in the open, in plain sight, somewhere people can see it. Somewhere Alec might glimpse it. 

Another kiss lands on the faint hollow of his temple, a bullseye. Alec pushes toast across the counter until Magnus takes it with a dramatic sigh, spreading mashed melon on it in a move born from blind curiosity. The spit-take almost kills him; Alec’s laughter almost does the same. The conversation shifts smoothly to their plans for the day, to wine-tasting and dinner reservations, but Alec has a feeling they'll end up back in bed, at least for today. No doubt there will be things to taste there too. Alec eats his eggs in small bites and thinks of hearts, and whether he's going to have to roll the both of them home, pink and flushed with wine-warmth. 

III.

“I say we spend a few more days here, really take in the sights.” Magnus is a pool of fluttering heat on the bed, sprawled like a cat and speaking dizzily. “I know the owner of this divine little orchard where I imagine we can pick oranges, walk barefoot, drink wine, strip off in the shade. All the good stuff.” 

“No public nudity,” Alec says mildly, over near the towering lilies that loom in each corner; the hotel room is an entire apartment, horrifyingly expensive, and packed with so many luxuries that Alec is afraid of breathing. The lilies are overkill. 

“How public,” Magnus muses aloud, while Alec drains a glass of water and stretches near the open window, “is public? We haven’t tried exhibitionism, and I don’t want to limit our experiences. I don't want things to grow stale. I'm a strong Indonesian man, Alexander, and I won't be accused of a lack of spice in any room.”

“I think our sex life is seasoned enough, don't you?” 

Magnus pats the sheets scrunched around him, hugging him, paper leaning into ink. When he smirks, it lights wildfires under Alec’s skin. “Prove it.” 

Alec proves it twice, just to be contrary. He sears kisses into velvet skin, leaving tracks with his mouth in fruity shades of plum, heat on his back as he presses Magnus into the sheets; lets himself be flipped and pushed, the tables turned, the sun on his chest now and catching the glint of sweat on Magnus’s proud throat as he throws his head back, claiming a victory for the both of them. 

IV.

In a wax-lit room, not as far into the past as people think, Shakespeare stabbed life into letters. Elizabethan air stank then, bodies sweltering without the sweetness, and the streets were crowded with houses, in turn crowded with people. He sat and wrote and thought of equally crowded stages, people standing at the feet of performers, laughter ringing into the night. Or maybe he thought of drinking, or dancers in their skimpy get-up, ankles showing, and the rich, meaty taste of well-cooked beef and pork on his tongue. Whatever he thought, he thought it well. 

Mundane literature interests Alec, and it's not a new interest. He was young when he picked up a book of sonnets for a low price in the market near one of Jace’s haunts, a place littered with cigarette ends and fluttering posters. He was older when he finally appreciated Shakespeare for the fun of it. His tales were inspired by the cynical nature of the world and carried the tart taste of satire to new heights. When he wove those stories on stage, people laughed for all the wrong reasons, and later with their tongue in cheek, while others grasped at deeper meanings for what ostensibly boiled down to a dick joke. 

Shakespeare wrote his stories, and a boy in an Institute hiding a heart reads them and feels known in the undertones. It's a funny story, when you dig deep, maybe a little sad. Not one that Alec really plans to mention. 

But in Verona, in the pique of the sun's rounded journey, Juliet’s balcony stands bathed in light for all to see. People grip the rail with awed hands. Alec wonders what her heart would have looked like, and what she hid it in, and whether she gave it to Romeo. He wonders if Anne had Shakespeare’s heart, or if that was another story. He kept it in a typewriter, people say. 

“I find it strange that people still call it the greatest love story in the world,” Magnus says, gazing sadly at the walls in aged greys and coppers. “Those should always have a happy ending, if you ask me.” 

“It's a love story in some ways, but it’s a tragedy,” Alec agrees, shifting for the crumbling steps of a woman steeped in arthritis; her grandson follows her, flyaway hair curling away from long lashes and brown skin, eyes tipped up with old, refreshed contentment.

“I never really liked it,” Alec admits, after a minute. “Romeo and Juliet, I mean.” 

“Not a Shakespeare fan?” 

Magnus wants to know this stuff, Alec reminds himself, pulling himself from his worries. It's easy enough to reach down and dust off an old story, hand it to Magnus, but it's still harder than he wants it to be. Even though Magnus knows. 

“I was more of a Sonnet 20 fan.”

Magnus laughs softly. Over on the balcony, people gather and giggle. A few turn scarlet, and two boys shove each other in the shoulders, grumbling and ducking their heads. So many stories, come to look at one of the greatest. 

“I was going to ask if you wanted to reenact it.” Magnus pulls him into the shade, out of the growing crowd. “I could recite a few verses, you could gaze adoringly up at me; we could prove the ending wrong.” 

Alec draws him in, a hand sliding around his waist, and feels the truth in his sore spots, in the muscle of his heart. “There's not going to be an ending for us.” 

They look at each other. Magnus looks dazed, that same soft awe in his eyes that never fails to make Alec feel like a giant, like he is small. 

“Upstaging them entirely?” Magnus kisses him soundly, in full view, and his eyes glitter when he pulls back. “I like the sound of that. William always was too big for his boots.” 

V. 

They get a cab, a run-down old thing more rust than green. The Lady in Red plays on the stereo; Chris de Burgh’s wavering tones linger in the sticky heat. The window eventually rolls down— _rolls, _Magnus mouths, aghast, as he throws money at the driver clad in a sleeveless tank, as though the barest manual labour heralds the end of all good things—but it gets stuck part way. The air grows hot quickly, the briefest of breezes teasing at Alec’s hair.__

__“This is why I invented the portal, Alexander. So I wouldn't have to melt in the back seat of a car, perish, and be buried stinking of tobacco and leather.”_ _

___Nobody here… it's just you and me._ _ _

__Alec smiles, eyelids at half mast. They don't drive often, and for the most part Alec doesn't mind. It's not like he's very good at it. The portal is a magnificent piece of magic, stunning to see, and undeniably useful. It burns Alec up that people try and redirect credit from Magnus, and he's never going to stop being in awe of it._ _

__“There's lots of fun things to get up to in a back seat,” Alec says, slow and Southern-thick like treacle. Mom would be ashamed, and Alec would be too, back home. It's the sun, that's all; it does things to him, makes him feel like taking his time. He feels Magnus’s eyes on him, immediately interested, and it makes him smile, equally as slow, savouring the cream._ _

__They don't do anything, not with the driver there. But Alec thinks about it. He thinks about getting on his knees in the back of the car, cramming himself into such a small space just to get his mouth on Magnus, worship him in this honeyed heat. Alec thinks about it and Magnus watches him think about it, and they both settle into butter-soft leather, ripened over time, thoughts fraying._ _

__The driver drops them off at the top of a sprawling green hill, pockmarked with orange; each fleck is bright orange, the colour of Alec’s heart, blossoming under the Verona sun. Alec blinks, and the colours do not fade._ _

__“We’re picking oranges?”_ _

__“Unless you have something else in mind.” But the heat has softened, and Alec always wants Magnus, but there is time for that later. He sees the same thought mirrored and it's nice, to have someone that reflects what you feel, the love in your chest that beats like a beast._ _

__Magnus knows the owner, and the owner's’ father before him, and his before him, when they both lived. They are greeted with kisses to each cheek, and flawless introductions in thick accents, borrowed without thought. There is so much that Magnus knows, so much that he has learned, and it rears its head at the most inopportune times, when people can see Alec lose his train of thought, fixating wildly on stunned awe. Not that he's ashamed. But it's still a little grainy, the idea of being seeing and knowing; it's not yet settled into the smooth gloss of a worn photograph._ _

__“I was thinking of going to the Opera when we get home,” Magnus says, swinging their hands as they walk through the lush rows of thick, green trees. “Or the ballet, perhaps? It's very moving, and the boxes are cosy. Private. I could wear a tuxedo.”_ _

__He flashes Alec a smile, sharp and quick as tiger teeth._ _

__“Ha.” Alec doesn't bother hiding his flash of interest, but he does pull them further into the plush orange trees. “Let's finish this vacation, before you go planning our next trip.”_ _

__“If you insist, although personally I think you're very capable of multi-tasking. Give yourself some credit, Alexander.”_ _

__It is easy, to chase Magnus through the trees. Not a proper run, not a chase that ends in anything more than carefree laughter and muttered insults, vague enough that they could also be compliments, but a chase all the same._ _

__“I have something for you,” Alec murmurs, so far in the trees that public and private mingle, mouth buried in the crook of Magnus’s neck._ _

__“Mmm.” Magnus punctuates the sound with a roll of his hips, and he sounds delighted when he says, “I noticed.”_ _

__Alec laughs, groans. “Not that. Ask me when we get home. Back to the hotel. Something.”_ _

__Blue magic pulses all around them, and Alec trips through verdant green and lands on plush sheets, bouncing on the mattress. The portal flickers to nothing, but Magnus stands in its evidence, painted blue, and smiles down at Alec._ _

__“I can never resists a gift, Alexander, especially from you.”_ _

__Alec tips his head back and laughs. He stands and reels Magnus in, kissing him quick and light, small kisses that bring laughs stuttering forward until he's pushed away gently._ _

__“Gift, Alexander. We can exchange.”_ _

__Alec heads for the suitcase. The zip is loud in the quiet. “You have one for me too?”_ _

__When he turns, shirt in hand, Magnus is holding something. It is wreathed faintly in magic, but it fades under Alec’s curious gaze to reveal the jewellery box. The one that Magnus gave him when he moved in, with a small joke about ‘what's mine is yours’ and a mention of seeing Alec in his favourite necklaces. Alec didn't open it, too busy kissing Magnus silly and thinking of where to put his books._ _

__“Is that… ?”_ _

__“You never opened it,” Magnus says softly, gesturing with the box. “Admittedly we were busy, but it's been on my mind. Did you know what was in it?”_ _

__“No,” Alec says, careful. “I want to, though.”_ _

__Magnus opens it with a small click, and then hands it to Alec. Inside, there is that same blue, the same portal blue, and it is streaked with gold, the same gold that fills Magnus’s eyes. It is amorphous, pulsing, almost a portal._ _

__“Oh,” Alec says. “Oh, Magnus.”_ _

__“It's not much of a gift, I know,” Magnus says airily, brushing over things, but his voice is shaky and the hands don't quite have their usual flourish. “It doesn't come with a receipt, I'm afraid. Yours forever.”_ _

__Alec inhales sharply. He closes the lid on the box and holds it close; blue peeks through the cracks near the hinge, unable to be contained. It makes Alec smile._ _

__“This was months ago,” Alec says, shaking his head. “I wish you'd said something sooner, I would have opened it right away. I would have told you it was beautiful. Magnus, I…”_ _

__Magnus cups his cheek, wary eyes filling with warmth. “You like it?”_ _

__Alec grasps for words, but there are none. He looks down at the box, and the shirt in his other hand, and laughs incredulously. He lifts the shirt until Magnus takes it._ _

__“Open it,” Alec says, and it takes a great deal of trust to say, “Whatever you feel when you see it, I feel for you.”_ _

__Alec holds Magnus’s heart while Magnus uncovers his, both of them breathing together in the warmth of Verona. It does not take long before orange blossom joins the hint of blue. It does not take long before they are kissing and kissing, entwined together like the branches of a tree, their hearts given and kept._ _

__“I'd go to the Opera with you,” Alec says later on, in the twilight, windows thrown open as they lie in bed, eating chicken and salad. “But you can't wear a tux, or I won't watch anything other than you. ”_ _

__“I don’t see what’s so bad about that, but if you insist.” Magnus pops an olive in his mouth, grinning around his thumb. “Recite Sonnet 20 to me, and we have a deal.”_ _

__The deal is struck._ _

__VI._ _

__Magnus turns up in a long, extravagant kimono, trailing a cloud of sage-salt perfume. He takes Alec’s arm, charm and poise; there is a pocket-watch around his neck that steals Alec’s breath._ _

__“Dignified enough for the Opera?” Magnus asks, patting the silk lapel smugly. “I think the pocket-watch adds a little distinguished something, doesn't it.”_ _

__It’s not a question. Alec swallows, mouth dry, and concentrates on making it up the stairs. It is a very, very good thing that Magnus wasn't joking about the boxes being cosy and private._ _

__The pocket-watch ticks, sun-warm despite the darkened theatre, and Alec feels it beat against his own chest just as surely as Magnus does._ _

__VII._ _

__There is no need to rewrite the ending of the greatest love story in the world. It lives in the worn streets of Brooklyn and the lush orchards of Verona. It grows like orange trees in every heart in history. It blossoms: where there is Alec and Magnus, there will always be fruit trees and musical breakfasts; there will always be a jewellery box and a pocket-watch; and there will always be two rings and two hearts._ _

__There is no need to rewrite the ending of the greatest love story in the world, because the greatest love story in the world does not end._ _

**Author's Note:**

> Please, validate me. I need brain juice, squeezed from fresh comments. Ew.


End file.
